


As Time Goes By

by AlyCalypso



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Happy Ending, I don't actually have the knowledge and competence to explain it, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post-Season/Series 10, Reference to historical events, References to Canon Events, Time Travel, Unexplained scientific advances, you just have to trust me that it works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:26:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26121127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyCalypso/pseuds/AlyCalypso
Summary: In a very near future, time travel is a reality. Ian and Mickey have been hired to work for a company that send them on different missions throughout the past. Until one day, Mickey is sent on a mission by himself and things don’t exactly go as planned...
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 19
Kudos: 26





	1. The Painting

Chicago in the mid 1990s wasn’t that different from Chicago in the early 2020s, with the exception that Mickey wasn’t allowed to use his smartphone, which currently pissed him off. He was impatiently tapping his foot, leaning back against the brick wall, itching for a cigarette but trying his best to resist it since he had promised his husband he would quit. He waited for another twenty seconds and decided that, _fuck it_ , said-husband was late and therefore inducing the anxiety Mickey was feeling so he wouldn’t be able to say anything. He took his “emergency pack” out of his jacket pocket, brought one to his mouth and lit it. The heat of the smoke immediately warmed him up. He hadn’t realized he was that cold, he wasn’t used to September having low temperatures like this, fucking global warming had turned Fall in Chicago into a never-ending summer nowadays.

“I thought you quit smoking.” Ian’s teasing voice came to his ears.

Mickey gave him the finger. Again, it was Ian’s fault he was smoking in the first place.

“Come on, let’s go. We’re late.”

He threw his half-smoked cigarette on the ground, stepped on it, and followed Ian into the dark alleyway. There, they found the big piece of off-white cloth that covered the strangely-shaped box and uncovered it. It was already glowing and waiting for them. Mickey had absolutely not fucking idea how all of this technology worked, he really didn’t, but it paid the bills so he didn’t look further than that. Ian stepped in first, and Mickey followed. He was absorbed into the hole for a few seconds, loosing all sense of self, he couldn’t smell, hear or see anything. It had made him sick the first few times, puking his guts out as soon as he stepped out of it and swearing he would never go through the pain again, but now he was used to it and it was just another day at the office. He had stepped into the glowing hole in 1995 in a shady street and exited it in 2020 into the lab with the white walls and white furniture he had gotten accustomed to and was greeted by two white coats and one black suit, all three of them already talking to Ian. The black suit left Ian to the white coats and turned toward Mickey.

“Did you get it?” he asked impatiently.

“Yes, yes.” Mickey sighed, taking a small velvety bag out of his pocket and handing it to the suit. “Here ya go.”

“You’re late.” one of the white coats said. “A minute later and the portal was closed.”

“Yeah, well, we weren’t a minute later, were we?”

The white coat shook his head and went back behind his computer to type stuff and enter data Mickey didn’t understand but that turned the glowing hole into a black circle. Until next time.

Mickey turned to his husband and watched him give the little glass tubes of blood and other medical shit he had collected to the other white coat. Mickey had never bothered to learn their names, he just did what they told him to do and collected his salary, that was enough for him. This whole company was one big scam anyway. Some genius up in his ivory tower had come up with a freaking time traveling technology but, of course, it was on the hush-hush to avoid the general public going batshit over it, so the company hired ex-cons and people on parole they could threaten and manipulate for a few bucks. When Ian and Mickey had been roped in on this, Mickey had been more than reluctant (especially after the whole Paula debacle) but now it was kind of fun. The company liked the idea of having a married couple doing this, so that they could share the secret with each other and be each other’s “support system”. Their individual skills were also greatly appreciated: Ian’s medical background was used to collect samples from random people in the past or to administer new remedies to old diseases and viruses, and Mickey’s light fingers were more than useful to swap expensive jewelry or other treasures. If he could see the scientific importance of Ian’s part in all this, Mickey knew his own skills were only used for profit, but the fun it had been to steal from Bonnie and Clyde themselves vastly outweighed the moral dilemma of it all. Of course there were rules: they had to leave and be back at very precise times, they weren’t allowed to be on the front line for any major historical event, nor could they alter the past at the risk of changing the present, and it wasn’t always easy to respect all of the guidelines but they seemed to be doing a fine job so far, they hadn’t witness any radical change to society and they hadn’t appeared in any old newspaper.

“I saw Monica.” Ian said as they were leaving the building and walking back to their car (car they could now afford thanks to this job).

Mickey immediately recognized the sadness that passed through his husband’s eyes.

“You’re okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Ian shrugged. “I saw her from across the street, she didn’t see me. She was high as a kite, or just extremely manic, I’m not sure. She was with my uncle Clayton, who’s, you know, not really my uncle… I hadn’t realized, September 1995, it’s about the time I was conceived, give or take a few weeks...”

“Shit.” Mickey breathed out.

“Yeah.” Ian chuckled. “I’m glad they were just hanging out and walking down the street, not sure I would have liked seeing more than that...”

Mickey shuddered at that. Damn, that was one part of time traveling he hadn’t thought of so far… He silently grabbed Ian’s hand and squeezed it tight. He knew his husband missed his mom from times to times, even if he didn’t quite understand it. Monica had a certain influence on Ian, he felt close to her for obvious reasons, so seeing her like this, alive and maybe a little too well, must have been hard, and Mickey wasn’t sure how to talk about it. He kept holding Ian’s hand as they drove home, and they silently made love that night, Ian keeping Mickey close when he shuddered through his orgasm. Later, they settled in quietly for the night in their brand-new apartment they could also afford thanks to that weird and crazy job, and they talked about Monica in the darkness of their bedroom until they fell asleep.

********

Mickey woke up the next morning to his phone buzzing incessantly. He opened one eye to check the caller ID, but the word “work” flashing across his screen plus the 7am time stamp made him snuggle back into his husband’s arms and go back to sleep. If only things were that simple. His phone kept buzzing, and buzzing, and buzzing. When one call ended, another one started. After what felt like three hours of this (but was in reality only three minutes), Mickey sat up, grabbing the device, and grumbled a tired and annoyed “What?” after pressing the green button.

“We need you at the lab this morning.” a somewhat familiar voice told him. “We have a last minute job for you.”

“Can’t somebody else do it?” Mickey groaned.

“You’re our best element.” the person on the other side of the call said. “And Mr Thrombey is prepared to offer you a very generous bonus if you accept.”

Mickey rubbed a hand down his face and looked at his husband peacefully sleeping by his side. No matter how much he just wanted to hang up the phone, he couldn’t risk to lose his job and, aside from that, they could always use the bonus money. They were trying to save for a bigger place so that Ian could fulfill his life-long dream of having a family with a bunch of rugrats running around. Mickey hadn’t necessarily been on board at first, not because he disliked kids, but rather because he liked the idea of Ian being his only family for the rest of their lives, he never imagined that, once he got him all to himself, he would ever need anyone else. Ian had always dreamed of having kids of his own though, and because Mickey loved him and wanted him to be happy, he had accepted that kids would be part of their future. And he figured that kids that would be his own and Ian’s, kids they had chosen to have, would be sort of great.

“Fine.” he agreed. “Do you need Ian too?”

“No.” the person said. “It’s a simple _material_ job.”

Mickey knew that meant he had to steal some shit. He wasn’t phased by it but still rolled his eyes as he ended the call. He got dressed and considered for a moment waking Ian up, but he liked to see him sleep too much, so he just scribbled down a note saying: “Gone to work. If I’m not back before 6, go without me and I’ll join you at your family’s house.” They had some kind of Gallagher family dinner that night, and as much as Mickey liked to pretend he hated them, he secretly liked to hang out with the crazy bunch that were his husband’s siblings, nieces and nephews. They were alright. He left the note on his pillow, left the room and then came back in a second later to add “Love you” at the bottom of the piece of paper. It had taken them literal years to learn to express their feelings correctly and it was still hard sometimes for Mickey to say such things, but he knew Ian loved the corniness of it, so if he had to leave a “love you” note every once in a while, he did it without too much struggle.

********

He arrived at work about an hour later, after stopping for coffee and donuts, and staying stuck in the early morning traffic for a little too long, and was immediately shown into the main lab.

“What do you need?” he asked the black suit as the white coats finished their last adjustments for today’s trip.

The black suit took out his tablet out and showed Mickey the picture of an ugly ass painting.

“This.” he explained. “It burned down in 1978 along with the artist’s studio. I need you to save it from the flames. Recovering such a lost piece of art today would be worth millions.”

“Don’t you have enough shit by now?” Mickey couldn’t help but ask.

The black suit didn’t dignify that remark with an answer and just showed Mickey to the clothes lying on top of a chair, waiting for him.

“Bring it back in one piece, but I wouldn’t mind a few traces of smoke.”

“So you want me to literally run into fire?”

“Pretty much.”

And with that, the black suit was gone, leaving Mickey to get ready to go. He didn’t always need to change outfit, but the late 1970s granted a special wardrobe, and flared pants and tight polo shirts were now officially on Mickey’s shit list. He weirdly liked the late 1920s and early 1930s fashion and wouldn’t mind going back then. Thrombey had once mentioned he was interested in something that belonged to Al Capone, and if Mickey had been intrigued by the idea of visiting Scarface and Prohibition era Chicago, Ian had expressed an uncompromising “hell no”, so the mission had never taken place.

The box lit up once Mickey was ready and standing on his mark, the black hole started glowing again. He took a deep breath and stepped through it, closing his eyes for a moment until he could step out.

He was in Chicago once again. It wasn’t always the case, he had sometimes traveled to other parts of the country as he also traveled through time, but it was always easier when he stayed in his hometown, if only to find his way through the streets toward his goal. Today he was even in the South Side, so he shouldn’t have any issues. He walked through the streets, admiring the changes that the decades had brought to his city. He crossed path with a hippie or two, and was even offered some drugs that were definitely not used as out in the open in the 2020s. He checked the address he had been given a few times and it took him almost an hour to find the art studio. It was a discreet building he had first missed, on the corner of a quiet street.

The way he handled things on this type of missions always differed according to the context. Today, he decided to simply go knock on the door. It was a gamble, he knew it, but he figured it was the best way to find where the painting was before the fire started, allowing him not to struggle into the flames for too long. As he was waiting for somebody to open the door, he chuckled to himself as he realized the ridiculousness of his job. Who the fuck even came up with stuff like that? They were lucky it was well-paid. The handle finally moved and the door was cracked opened to reveal a person who was probably the artist, if the paint stains all over his clothes, face and hands indicated anything. He looked incredibly high, and Mickey guessed LSD. He ignored this little detail as he offered his hand to shake.

“Hi. My name’s Dan.” he lied. “I’m interested in buying one of your paintings. I called earlier.”

The guy looked at him blankly for a long minute.

“You did?”

“Yeah.” Mickey nodded. “May I?”

The guy took a step back and let Mickey in. The studio was filthy and filled with as much paint as it did drugs. How could this guy’s paintings be worth millions in the 2020s? Mickey would never understand art… The artist gave him a quick tour which allowed Mickey to find his target, hidden behind a dirty easel, against the back wall, and then talked for about a good thirty minutes about his current piece. Mickey regularly checked his watch, hoping the fire wouldn’t start with him in it. After a while, he declared he hadn’t found the right piece for today and he left. He hid in a corner of the street, behind a big dumpster and waited, observing the coming and going around the studio. It was such a quiet street that nothing happened and Mickey almost fell asleep once or twice. Or maybe he actually did fall asleep? All he knew was that the next time he opened his eyes, something was finally happening.

A sketchy guy who Mickey suspected to be a low-level drug dealer (he’d seen enough of them in his lifetime to know) arrived near the back door with gasoline and enough matches to light up the whole street. Mickey had to wait for the perfect moment, after the dealer was gone, and before the fire was too big that it would attract onlooking bystanders. He covered his mouth and nose with the god-awful scarf that was part of his outfit and ran in, going straight for the painting. In and out, quick and safe, like he had planned. Just as he was about to leave though, he felt a hand grab his ankle and looked down to see a skinny woman, looking fucking high and pleading for help. _Do not alter the course of history. Do not alter the course of history._ He knew he should leave her, she was supposed to die in the fire that day, but something in her glassy eyes and desperate expression reminded him of his mom after she had taken a bit too much to drown the pain. _Fuck that._ Mickey shook his head and grabbed the woman by the elbow, she was light as a feather and he couldn’t just let her die. What was the worst that could happen? She was a junkie in an art studio, she wouldn’t kill the president or some shit. He ran outside with her and the painting. He left her by the dumpster he had previously hid behind, a few feet down the street and then kept running until he reached the spot where his time-travel hole was waiting for him. He didn’t know what time it was, if he was late or early, he just jumped in, gripping the painting tightly and exited on the other side in the lab, his face still half covered. He handed the painting to the white coat waiting for him and started to leave without waiting for further questions.

“Tell your boss I’m taking the next two days off!” he yelled as he walked away. “This shit was way too intense...”

*******

He wandered around the parking lot for a while until he actually remembered what he was doing there and started looking around for his car. He didn’t find it where he had parked it that morning, nor anywhere else. He had thought the place was secure and cars couldn’t be stolen from it, but he had obviously been wrong. He looked down at his phone. It was already way past six and Ian would be waiting for him at his family’s house. Mickey was too tired to care about his car at the moment, so he made his way toward the L and figured he would deal with it later, this fucking mission had taken too much out of him, he had walked through a literal fire after all.

He realized once he was in the train that he was still wearing his 1970s outfit, and that made people look at him a little weird, but it was the South Side of Chicago so the strange glances didn’t last for long. Or maybe it was the fact that he was smelling like smoke and looked like he had just escaped a fire...

Arriving at the Gallagher house, Mickey took note of the two cars out front he had never seen but shrugged it off just as quickly, there were always people coming and going in this house, he had stopped questioning it a while ago. So he just walked around and through the back door as if it was his own house – which, admittedly it had been for a while. The kitchen was already full and he greeted everyone with a

“Sorry I’m late! Crazy day at work!”

He spotted Ian sitting at the kitchen table and went to kiss him when he noticed all eyes were on him, especially the redhead’s, who stood up and took a step away from him, keeping Mickey at a distance with his hand stretched out in front of him.

“Who the fuck are you?”


	2. The Archives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I took so long to update, I finished writing chapter 2 a while ago but I wasn't satisfied with it so I rewrote and reworked everything and now that fic will be longer than 3 chapters....

Mickey’s first instinct was to laugh, Ian was just being pissy at him because he was late and the Gallaghers were playing along, but as he kept watching them he realized they didn’t look like they were joking. And then Carl came back with the bat and Mickey sensed he was no longer welcome. What could he do though? Leave? Pretend he didn’t know this family and Ian wasn’t his husband? He couldn’t just give up that easily! So he raised his hands above his shoulders in a defensive move and spoke slowly.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” he said. “I just really need to talk to Ian.”

The redhead looked him up and down with his tough guy expression Mickey liked so much.

“How do you know my name?”

“It’s a long story.” Mickey admitted. “Can we talk? Outside?”

Another few seconds went by before Ian nodded and agreed to follow Mickey in the backyard. As the kitchen door closed behind them, Mickey saw Carl still standing ready with his bat. He wouldn’t have expected less of him.

“Who are you?” Ian asked as soon as they were alone.

“Mickey.” Mickey simply said, but when that didn’t bring any reaction from Ian he added: “Milkovich?”

Ian shook his head as if his last name didn’t ring a bell. What sort of fucked up universe was this?

“I grew up around here.” he said. “Down on South Trumbull, the house near the L tracks, the creepy one.”

“I know that house.” Ian nodded. “It belongs to a weird old lady. Debbie used to do some cleaning for her. Never had any kids.”

Mickey looked down the street and then back at Ian. Fuck. What the hell was happening? Where was he?

“Well... At some point in time I did live there.” he said. “And we... We were together? Married even. I don’t know what the fuck happened. We work for this company that sends us time traveling. I must have changed something because this morning we woke up in the same bed in our apartment and now you don’t know me and your family wants to kill me.”

Ian looked at him for the longest time Mickey could have imagined. And then something clicked in his brain and he took a step back and started talking mostly to himself.

“Are you real? Fuck, I’m having some kind of fucked up hallucination, aren’t I? I thought I was doing so good...”

“No!” Mickey exclaimed, maybe a little too loudly. “Your meds aren’t out of balance, it’s just a really fucked up situation to understand.”

“How do you know about my meds?”

“Married, remember?” Mickey smiled a little, showing off his wedding band.

“I don’t know you.” Ian shook his head. “You’re a fucking psycho coming into my house, telling me we’re married and some insane time traveling story. You need to leave. Just fucking leave.”

“Ian...”

“Leave me alone.”

Mickey wasn’t one to cry that easily, but that felt like a rolling in a ball and sobbing kind of moment. He could handle Ian breaking up with him, he could handle Ian pushing him away because of some bullshit Monica had filled his head with or because he had a new boyfriend and a “stable life”, but this? Ian not knowing who he was, Ian not recognizing him, Ian being afraid of him? Mickey didn’t know how to deal with that. He watched him go back inside the Gallagher house and sucked in the fresh evening air. So now what? His family house was apparently occupied by some unknown old lady, he had no husband and no one to turn to. He looked around, trying to figure out his next move. He was tempted to go their apartment but deep down he knew he wasn’t theirs in this reality, just as the Milkovich house didn’t belong to a Milkovich. And even if the apartment was theirs – or only his – Mickey didn’t want to go back there alone. He took his wallet out and counted the little cash he had. Enough for a night in a motel, and he would figure out the rest later.

********

He didn’t sleep a wink that night. He tossed and turned, and finally got up to go buy beers and cigarettes that he smoked and drank in the loneliness of his motel room. By the morning he had three plans: 1. Return to work to see if they could help him fix this mess. 2. Look for Milkoviches all over Chicago. 3. Go back to see Ian just in case the night had triggered some kind of memory of him.

He started by plan A, and headed down to the godforsaken company that had hired him to time-travel. As soon as he arrived at the gate though, his company ID was declined and the security guard at the front let him know there was no “Mikhailo Milkovich” on their records or payroll (after Mickey made enough of a fuss that the security guard agreed to call a supervisor to check). So that was a bust.

After being escorted out, Mickey continued on to plan B and, without any real idea of what he was doing, went to the Archives on South Pulaski. He had never been to that place, and didn’t even know it existed before one of the white coats had mentioned it a few weeks back when they were doing research for a mission. Mickey avoided official buildings as a general rule except for when he didn’t have a choice but to end up in court, or that one time Ian and him almost got married. That one wasn’t too bad though and couldn’t send him to jail so that was a plus. It looked like a regular library except that the shelves were filled with old newspapers or official documents and not books. Mickey felt quite overwhelmed by it all and almost immediately chose to go ask for help at the front desk. The guy behind his computer looked friendly enough and even smiled as he asked what he could help Mickey with.

“I’m looking for anything about the Milkovich family.” he said tentatively.

The guy nodded and asked for him to spell the name as he typed it on his keyboard. Less than a minute later, he looked back up from his screen.

“We have a few birth and death certificates, one marriage license and a news article from 1979. Are you interested by anyone in particular?”

“Is there a Terry Milkovich in there?”

The guy read from his screen for a moment and then nodded.

“Yes. We have his birth and death certificate. The marriage license also has his name on it, as well as the article.”

So Terry did exist and got married but died sometime between 1978 and now. Mickey took a deep breath. He needed to know more.

“Who did he get married to? And when?”

“Hum...” the guy started. “He married Mary Wright in October 1978.”

_Mary Wright?_ Who the fuck was that? Mickey was so damn confused…

“And he died in 1979.” the front desk guy continued. “The article is about his wife stabbing him to death after a domestic dispute.”

“Oh shit...” Mickey breathed, making the guy frown.

Well, good for her for stabbing him, but that meant Mickey was never born. Nor were any of his siblings. His head started to spin at that. He needed to sit. Or lay down. But then a thought hit him.

“Do you have a Sandy Milkovich in there?”

The guy started typing again. She wasn’t Terry’s kid, maybe there was a chance…

“Yes.” the guy said. “We have a birth certificate for a Sandy Milkovich, born in 1995.”

_Thank fuck!_ Mickey almost burst in laughter at the relief. Granted, she wouldn’t know him, but a Milkovich was always loyal to another Milkovich, that was just a rule of thumb. He was ready to leave to find wherever his cousin was hiding, but he needed to know one more thing...

“Do you have a picture of that Mary Wright?” he asked.

“We have her mugshot.”

The guy printed an old black and white picture that was barely recognizable but Mickey could immediately tell he knew this girl, she was the skinny junkie he had rescued from the fire just the day before… The action he thought would have no consequences literally destroyed his life in the sense that it kept him from having one. He folded and pocketed the picture, and then thanked the guy before leaving. He needed to fix things, but he couldn’t do that alone, and Sandy had always been his right-hand woman. He needed her.

********

He was tempted to go find Sandy right away, but his feet took him to the Gallagher house once more, against his will. When he arrived there, Ian was sitting on the front steps, smoking.

“I knew you’d come back.” he said, and Mickey’s heart did a little jump of happiness.

“You did?”

Ian shrugged and puffed out some smoke.

“I figured that if your story’s true, then it’s what I’d do… Try again to make sure my husband really doesn’t remember me or check if something came back to him.”

“And?”

“Nope, I still don’t know who you are.” Ian said. “But I feel like I need to tell you I have a boyfriend.”

Mickey had a sudden sense of déjà-vu but he couldn’t say he was surprised.

“Figured.”

“What does that mean?” Ian asked, sounding offended.

  
“It means you are physically incapable of being single.” Mickey simply stated.

“I take it that I’ve hurt you with that in our reality?”

  
“We’ve hurt each other.”

There was a silence at that, both contemplating the truth and its consequences on their individual lives. Ian kept smoking and Mickey just stared at him without really seeing the man he married.

  
“So how did we meet?” Ian asked after a little while.

  
“Really?” Mickey scoffed. “We’re doing that?”

  
“Why not?” Ian shrugged.

  
Mickey sighed and took out a cigarette of his own. Alright then, let’s start at the beginning.

“Well... We kind of grew up together, in the same neighborhood.” he said. “We saw each other at school, Little League games and all that. Then later, I tried to kill you because I thought you raped my sister.”

  
“Lovely.” Ian laughed. “And I fell in love with you?”

“Fuck no. You were terrified of me! But then I started stealing from the store you worked at...”

  
“The Kash and Grab?”

  
“Yeah, I guess you worked there in this reality too...”

  
“I did. And neighborhood kids stole from it all the time, but I’ve never seen you there.”

  
“Yeah, well... I was never born so...”

  
“You were _never born_?”

  
Mickey took a step forward and went to sit next to Ian. How to explain things when you don’t quite understand them yourself? Mickey wasn’t even sure how he was still alive in this time when his father was not. He wasn’t entirely he wasn’t going to disappear from one day to the next.

“I went down to the Archives today.” he started to explain. “Never think I’d say those words in my life... Wasn’t even sure that was a place that existed. Anyway, I found out my dad died over a decade before I was supposed to be conceived.”

  
“Shit.” Ian whispered. “How did that happened?”

  
“I rescued the wrong person from a fire.”

  
“I have so many questions...”

  
“And I don’t have any fucking answer...”

  
Ian smiled apologetically at him.

  
“Can I ask you more questions about us then?”

  
“If you have to...”

  
“How long were we together before we got married?”

  
Mickey thought about that for a second, took a drag of his cigarette.

  
“About ten years. On and off.”

  
“That’s a long time.”

  
“What’s the longest you’ve been with a boyfriend?”

  
“About a year.”

  
Mickey nodded. Yeah, that seemed right. And a little part of him was happy and hopeful that Ian didn’t seem to have found his person yet in a world in which Mickey Milkovich didn’t exist.

  
“Who proposed?”

  
Mickey chuckled a little at that.

  
“You. Twice.”

  
“Did you say no the first time?”

  
“Nope, I said yes. You got scared just before we signed the paperwork.”

  
“Shit. Sorry. But, to be honest, I think I understand that other me, I’m not sure I can see myself get married, I’d be too afraid to end up like Frank and Monica. What happens if my meds get off balance and I do some crazy shit? My family doesn’t have a choice but to stick with me, but a husband? I don’t want to put anyone through that who doesn’t _have to_ be there...”

  
Apparently Ian in all realities had the same fears. It was weirdly comforting to Mickey, it meant he wasn’t the one bringing it out of him. Not that he ever thought that for certain, but he’d had his doubts over the years.

“I’m guessing I already told you that?” Ian said tentatively. “The other me?”

  
“Yeah.”  
  
“And we still got married.”

  
“We sure did.”

  
“You must be pretty special, then.”

  
Ian smiled shyly and Mickey really, really wanted to kiss him. But he wasn’t allowed to. That Ian wasn’t his, he didn’t know him, they didn’t have that history, that Ian didn’t love him. So Mickey stood up and threw his cigarette butt on the ground.

  
“I’m gonna go see if I can find some family members.” he declared. “You don’t happen to know a Sandy Milkovich by any chance?”

  
Ian shook his head.

  
“No, sorry. Good luck though.”

  
“Yeah, thanks.”

Mickey was about to walk away when Ian called him back.

“Hey, can I get your phone number, maybe? In case anything comes back to me.”

“Sure.” Mickey agreed, while trying to keep his heart in check – he couldn’t get excited about that, Ian was just being pragmatic, nothing else. “I’m not sure it works so well though, considering I don’t officially exist, don’t think my phone plan followed through.”

“Phone companies are such sharks, we never know.”

  
They laughed, exchanged phone numbers, and then Mickey walked away. He kept himself from looking back even though he really wanted to. He needed to find a way to go back to his own time, his own life. He needed to go back to his Ian, he started to miss him way too much. This was worse than prison walls or Mexican borders, because this was almost hopeless…

********

Ian watched the man who claimed to be his husband walk away. There was something about him, something he couldn’t quite explain but that felt… _familiar?_ He wanted to keep talking with him, laughing with him, smoking with him. He didn’t know that man and he was still partly convinced he was a creeper who had invented the whole time travel thing, but he also wanted to know more about him. He’d had many boyfriends, he had even been in love a few times – or at least thought he was – but things had never been that easy with any of them. He had never wanted to be near them, with them with such intensity after only knowing them for barely a day. If Mickey was saying the truth and they were married in another timeline, then Ian understood why.

“What you dreaming about?” Lip asked, sitting next to his brother on the steps.

“Mickey.” Ian answered.

“The guy who randomly showed up at the house last night?”

“Yeah.” Ian nodded. “He claims he’s my husband, in another reality or some shit. Apparently he’s some time travel guy and he changed something that erased him from our timeline. I know it sounds fucking insane, Lip, but I’m taking my meds.”

Ian was expecting his brother to laugh at him or to recommend a stay in the psych ward, but instead Lip frowned in that expression he had when he was thinking intensely about something or trying to figure out a complicated problem.

“It doesn’t sound insane.” he said. “I actually think he might be telling the truth...”

**Author's Note:**

> Leave kudos and/or comments if you wish. And you can also come talk and share with me on my [tumblr](http://ilostmylifeonline.tumblr.com/), it's always appreciated :)


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